Las Vegas 7
2016-03-22 23.57.37-1.jpg|Mission: Fremont St, Las Vegas. Meet Sara (lower middle). We met her on Fremont Street and had some amazing conversations. 2016-03-23 14.42.53.jpg|Bucket drumming at VBS! 2016-03-23 20.39.31.jpg|Dara with some of the youth group girls that we have been able to connect with for 4 years in a row now. 2016-03-24 21.09.24.jpg|These three were at our first VBS 7 years ago, and we have been able to connect with them every year since. So cool to see them growing up! 20160320214244_IMG_8457.JPG|Sunday night worship. Seven years has given us lots of opportunities to learn how to love people well. It has also taught us how to be flexible, prepare well, and realize the evangelism follow up (discipleship) is important as well! This year was no exception in needing to apply what we have learned in past years! After a long drive to Vegas filled with an early start, snow storms, and rest stop adventures – we also found out that two sets of family friends in Vegas had medical situations going one with family members. That gave us the opportunity during the week to make some hospital visits and love people in the midst of their hurts. All 20 of us stayed in the house of a local friend out there - talk about communal living! But being together gave us the opportunity for daily debrief times, which kept us all on the same page. During the day on Sunday we headed to the Valley of Fire state park for some hiking and team building with the Kairos Las Vegas group. The scenery was incredible, the hike took several out of their comfort zones, and no one got a sunburn! Following the hike we headed back to town for a barbeque with our Vegas team. Church that evening looked like an hour of worship followed by some sharing and more processing of what God had been doing and what we anticipated him doing throughout the week. God was already on the move! Between time on campus in the mornings, VBS in the afternoons, and evangelism times out on the streets at night, we saw God showing up for conversation after conversation! Highlighting one of the stories… We had all gone to Fremont Street, getting there closer to 10pm. There were still plenty of crowds around, giving us plenty of opportunities to talk to people. Dara and I (Wade), came across a college aged girl just coming out of the tarot card readers shop. It seemed like a good opportunity to ask her what the experience had been like, so we started talking to her. That opened up a spiritual conversation, and as soon as I initiated the "perspective" conversation and asked her if she thought she was a good person, she started crying. That immediately skipped about 10 levels worth of conversation, and took us right to the heart of things. Turns out that Sara had gone to church and church camp as a kid, but had never really gotten back. And now, years later, God was really working on her heart and reminding her of how good it had been. Sara was so friendly and open that it was easy to talk to her, but at the same time it was so hard because you could literally see the battle she was going through. She desperately wanted to go all in with God, but she acknowledged how hard it would be to make the changes, especially when she returned home (she was from out of state) to no godly support system, to a relationship that wasn't the best, and to her own circumstances that she needed to deal with. It was right about at this time that our students started to catch up with us, and with Sara saying how hard it was going to be to change, it seemed like a great time for her to hear some of the students’ stories, about how God had brought them through hard things before. We found a coffee shop, and four or so of our students shared the three- to four-minute version of their stories with her. It was such a powerful time for all of us. In the end, we connected with Sara by text, walked her back to her hotel, prayed for her and got a picture so that we could all remember what God had done that night. Please be praying for our new friend!! She is in the midst of making some difficult decisions about what her future will look like. Pray that her future includes God in a real and personal way! This story was just one of the many that happened during the week. We have found that when we turn from “fearing men” to “fearing God” – it opens up doors that seemed impossible to open before. The trip is really revolutionary for so many who go for the first time. And when they return for a second trip, they are so ready to teach the next group from what they have learned before. God continues to amaze – he is so faithful!